Why?

This youth academy thing is interesting. I don't have a clear picture about it, whether if it's a good thing or not to develop talent. I just know that Swedish players seldom go to academies abroad when they're young, they develop in our domestic leagues.

"this just happens", that's what I wonder. How much is just coincidence, and how much is structural (witch domestic youth coaching systems and stuff) when a nation rises or declines.

Another example is the Czech decline, while Poland went up like a star in just a few years. Portugal rose to the elite back in the 90's after being laughing stock for many years. Then the boom of Spain 8 years ago. Italy (while in the quarter finals now) has declined a bit together with its domestic league.

Looking outside of Europe, it's strange that there aren't any nations rising to the elite whatsoever, hasn't been for 50 years - except for Chile.

Meanwhile some nations are extremely stable, like the constant mediocrity of England.

Another one who doesn't want to accept that Portugal is an elite team in the World.

Germany
France
Italy
Spain
Portugal/Belgium/Poland/Croatia

Tied 5th best team in Europe.

Hopefully Wales can beat Portugal as well now, too bad Hungary didn't finish the job and sent them home in the group stage...

There shouldn't be any surprises,Wilmots is an absolute shite coach who thinks he's good.

Meh.. Only attacking wise we look grim.. There is no new Bergkamp, Kluivert, Van Nistelrooy striker and Robben, Overmars like winger..

we have de Vrij, Kongolo, Riedewald, Tete, Willems at the back for the future which should be fine cause we have played with the likes of Heitinga, Mathijssen, van der wiel,  braafheid at the the back..

midfield with Strootman, Klaassen, Wijnaldum, Propper, van ginkel and wunderkid Bazoer should do fine.. Not worldclass we had with Sneijder, Van Bommel but adequate enough..

only our attack looks horrible with narsingh, luuk de jong, Memphis, berghuis, janssen, promes.. Only the last two I have some hope they'll improve to a next level.. And there aren't any attacking Dutch wunderkids coming from Ajax, PSV or Feyenoord..

It's honestly a joke how draws turned out. Portugal will be in the final and they've been garbage and they're only going to play garbage teams til the final.

But if Uruguay, Chile and Argentina can be producing elite talent year after year, why not other countries with similar economies, size of population and interest in football? Like Colombia, Peru, Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Iran, Tunisia, Saudi-Arabia, Algeria, Marocco, Egypt, South Africa and Turkey.

And if you consider how damn talented black players are genetically (in France, Belgium, England, Portugal and Holland the black population is only 1-2% but they make up 20-30% of all the professional football players) one would think that at least a couple of Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast and Cameroon would take steps like Brazil and Mexico did as poor nations in the past and join the elite of world football.

And moneywise, the national teams of countries like USA, Japan, Korea, India and China are performing much worse compared with how much money there are in their domestic leagues.

But no, it's all about Europe.

Genetically talented? Dude you are something else.

First you have to investigate why are there a surge of talents in said countries then draw a conclusion.

Brazil and Mexico are not as poor as you think. They have a huge amount of people living in precarious condition but I guarantee you they're richer than most European countries. They invest a lot in soccer and African countries can't have the luxury of doing that because... 3rd world problems.

Money in domestic league is not everything, ask England, where the most money flow in terms of soccer business.